We Must Put an End to Gender Conversion Therapy for Kids

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We Must Put an End to Gender Conversion Therapy for Kids

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Leelah Alcorn, a trans youth who endured conversion therapy, wrote in her suicide note, "The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren't treated the way I was, they're treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights."

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WIRED Opinion

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(https://www.wired.com/2015/06/big-problem-outlawing-gender-conversion-therapies/) pieces have been published in newspapers and magazines (including in WIRED) decrying President Obama's statement condemning conversion therapy for LGBT youth, as well as the recently passed ban on conversion therapy for LGBT youth in the province of Ontario, Canada home of some of the practice's defenders. Since the 1990s, major medical and mental health organizations have condemned conversion therapy for the purpose of changing a person's sexual orientation. The recent controversy is in response to efforts to also ban conversion therapy attempts to change gender identity and expression in children.

[opinion name="WIRED Opinion "]Dan Karasic is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCSF. He is on the Board of Directors of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and provides care for trans youth as a psychiatrist. Diane Ehrensaft is Director of Mental Health for the Child and Adolescent Gender Center at Benioff Children's Hospital and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at UCSF. She is the author of Gender Born, Gender Made: Raising Healthy Gender-Nonconforming Children.

It is a misconception that this alternative to conversion therapy pushes children to transition to another gender.